Speaking to ifa, Haydn van Nek, operations manager at Kelly Wealth, said he doesn’t necessarily agree with “the grandfathering for those advisers that have over 10 years’ experience”.
“I think in a way it waters down the professional requirements that younger advisers will have, and I think our clients are going to just come to expect that their advisers are qualified equally in a sense,” Mr van Nek said.
Earlier this month, Financial Services Minister Stephen Jones said that the government is preparing to begin consulting on the implementation of the experience pathway early next year.
“It would be my hope that we’ve got legislation in the first half of next year through to parliament so those things can be settled.”
Mr Jones first announced the experience pathway last year before releasing a comprehensive consultation paper in August, which also covered other areas of the professional qualification framework in financial advice.
At the time, Mr Jones explained that the government proposes removing the requirement for a tertiary qualification if an adviser has 10 years of experience, a clean record, and has passed the relevant exam.
News of the consultation was met with mixed reactions by industry stakeholders. The Association of Financial Advisers’ (AFA) CEO, Phil Anderson, told ifa at the time that he is pleased that the government is looking at how to better recognise prior learning and experience.
Meanwhile, in its submission to the government, the Financial Planning Association of Australia (FPA) said that “unassessed experience alone is an insufficient foundation to meet the objectives of raising the minimum education requirements for professional financial advice providers and continuing to build consumer confidence in the profession”.
“Having surveyed its members to understand their views on the proposed modifications, 55 per cent of FPA members have already completed their required education and 35 per cent are on track to meet the existing education standards.
“Of those surveyed, 71 per cent of members meet the proposed experience pathway, while 55 per cent oppose the introduction of the proposed experience pathway, and 73 per cent would only support an experience pathway if there was a sunset introduced.”
This move puts us right back to where we started. I’m ready to be part of a profession. 10 years full time is also far too black and white. 15 years part time gets no acknowledgement (part time mums for example), 9.5 years full time gets no acknowledgement. If such a move is to make any sense, then it needs to be phased in for such variations to make it fair. Secondly, there absolutely must be a finish date on it. OIder advisers might appreciate another 5-7 years in the industry before retiring. You can understand why they can’t justify the study. Anyone planning to stay longer, JUST DO IT!
Agree, sensible points made.
But we are dealing with Govt and ASIC as the new FARSEA.
Zero chance of them doing anything sensible.
While I can understand why Haydn, and others, might feel this way, giving no credit for years and years of CPD, as was in the FASEA mandate, is a slap in the face to those of us who have maintained these standards for decades. We need to raise education standards, but not at the expense of further decimating the adviser workforce
I agree – no experience exemption. Over a couple of decades I have audited and coached 100s of advisers and there is no guarantee that experience equates to a professional qualification. I’ve seen some questionable advisers with over 10 years experience who just scrape through audits and had to go onto training plans to keep advising. But to give some balance I have also worked with with highly qualified advisers who lack the experience to truely give the best advice but if push came to shove I’d go with the latter. And who sits at the top of the pile? Being careful not to over generalise, but its the adviser with over 5 years experience who has continually updated their professional qualifications and has grasped the need to have a high, national, publicly recognised standard for ALL advisers.
Any adviser with over 10 years experience who won’t, or can’t, pass the exam should exit the industry gracefully.
Dougal, not talking about the FARCEAcal exam.
Talking about zero recognition of long held experience and the extreme time cost of starting Uni for older Advisers that have very little work time to get any fair payment back from such a huge time cost expense.
Heard of Economics time costs ?
We don’t want the used car salesman back in.
Haydn, let’s say for example you have just retired and your entire future lifestyle depends on the skill and experience of the adviser you choose? Would you pick the adviser with 2 to 3 years experience and a full degree? Or would you pick the adviser with 25 years experience, been through numerous market conditions & turmoil, and seen 1,000’s of cases similar to yours and the long term effects and changes that happen in real life scenarios?
Or, what if you had to have brian surgery? Would you go for the new guy or the experienced surgeon?
It’s a “no brainer” mate. Both have eduction but experience is the difference!!!!
Having been degree qualified in Economic and Business when the starting point in Advice = Dip FP Course 1 only.
Clearly over the last 20 + years the Government was told and should have increased the Dip FP 1-4 RG146 to substantially more. Alas the Governments failed for far too long yet again.
Only post RC grilling did anything happen and they went from nowhere near enough to stupidly restrictive.
[b]Remember FARSEA’s first announcement that any degree older than 10 years counted for nothing. all start Uni again from scratch. A moronic federal Government body telling Advisers with Federal Government approved relevant degrees that they had wasted 3 + years of their life and costs. WTF ?[/b]
Then 3 years fighting FARSEA for recognition of prior learning. What an absolute disgrace.
Imagine being 60 years old with 20 to 30 years real world Advice experience and being told to spend hundreds of thousands $$$$$ of time cost and course costs to start Uni.
Yet again complete and utter Government moronic failure.
I have little problem with letting some older, experienced Advisers avoid stupid time wasted costs for theoretical Uni course they have so little time to get paid back in working years for.
[b]I’ll tell what will water down professionalism 1 million times more than this, call center jockeys with no education, no qualifications, no licensing and no regulation force feeding financial product sales via vertically owned Super Funds, Banks and Life Insurance Companies. [/b]